A fossil fuel needle desperately trying to get another fix hit an artery
and leaked oily mud and methane into a creek near Beverly, Ohio,
forcing evacuation of people nearby.
Once again, state agencies had to deal with a problem caused
by a private company.
This collateral damage drew in yet another fracking opponent,
this time one founded by an opponent of the first Superfund.

A Morgan County shale well being drilled in preparation for fracking
began leaking on Sunday, forcing the evacuation of nearby residents.

State and federal environmental emergency-response teams and the
drilling company finally contained the mess yesterday, but not
before it reached a nearby creek.

The leak was discovered
on Sunday, when about 10 gallons per minute
of oily drilling fluid, called mud, gushed from the drill site,
according to an Ohio Environmental Protection Agency report filed on
Monday.

Seven residents from three houses were evacuated because of the
danger that escaping natural gas might lead to an explosion.

According to a U.S. EPA report, a “pocket of unexpected
natural gas was encountered” during drilling. That caused
overpressurization and failure of the well head. One hundred barrels
of drilling mud spilled from the well on Sunday, according to the
well’s owner, PDC Energy of Colorado, which said some of it reached
an unnamed creek near Beverly, Ohio.

PDC operates in Colorado within the liquid-rich Wattenberg Field and
the Appalachian Basin including the emerging liquid-rich Utica Shale
play in Ohio and the Marcellus Shale in West Virginia. PDC’s
strategy is simple: increase shareholder value through the growth of
reserves and production, while operating properties in an efficient
manner to maximize the cash flow and earnings potential of its
assets.

So PDC is pocking at the Marcellus Shale in West Virginia while
Spectra is getting gas from the same shale in Pennsylvania.

PDC’s website also says:

The Company is committed to optimizing margins through efficient
drilling operations, sound well management, and environmental
stewardship.

Why are we letting anyone inject hundreds of barrels of an unknown mix
of oil and who-knows-what into the ground underneath towns and drinking water?

A fracking company representative phrased it interestingly:

“Obviously, the very first thing is safety to personnel and
anyone in the area,” Edwards said. “ And we minimize
what impacts we have to the environment.”

Indeed they do minimize the damage to the environment,
as in the fossil fuel industry tries to say it’s minimal.
Remember, according to the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA)
as reported by Oregon Live,
it’s just an “abnormal operating condition”, not even a reportable incident,
unless it involves a death or injury or “the loss of more than $50,000 in product”.
I wonder who reports how much “product” was lost?
And if the fracking company doesn’t consider that oily mud to be “product”?
As for the people who were evacuated, apparently they don’t count.

Here’s somebody who doesn’t think pumping oily mud into a creek and
evacuating local residents is minimal:

Teresa Mills, of the Center for Health, Environment & Justice, said
she fears that these spills occur more often than the public hears.

“It is shameful that citizens don’t have a way to get this
information,” she said. “It’s not on any state Web
page.”

What’s the Center for Health, Environment & Justice (CHEJ)
that wants to know how often fracking spills occur?
According to CHEJ’s About
web page:

Center for Health, Environment & Justice is a national, nonprofit,
tax-exempt organization that provides organizing and technical
assistance to grassroots community groups in the environmental
health and justice movement.
CHEJ was founded in 1981 by Lois Gibbs, who helped win the
relocation of over 900 families from their neighborhood which was
contaminated by chemicals leaking from the Love Canal landfill in
Niagara Falls, NY. Through this effort, Gibbs and her neighbors woke
up the nation to recognize the link between people’s exposures to
dangerous chemicals in their community and serious public health
impacts.

Another organization summed up the general state of the whole fracked methane
industry, from well to pipeline to LNG export,
in that
Columbus Dispatch update:

“The public has received repeated assurance that Ohio has
appropriate rules and regulations, and there is nothing to
fear,” said Jack Shaner, deputy director of the Ohio
Environmental Council. “ (But) incidents like this are a clear
and present danger.”

Are there any better regulations in Alabama, Georgia, or Florida
for fracked methane pipelines from for example GA DNR?
Or are such pipelines also a clear and present danger to our
fragile drinking water aquifer, our wildlife and forests,
and our property rights?